I have come across MANY articles and the following is the culmination of what I have learned.

1. Understand contracts and know what you need to have in them like an escape clause. NO ONE will
look out for your interest better then YOU. Publishers are looking out for themselves, hence the
contract.

2. Whoever you partner with to publish your book, make sure they keep up their end of the contract.

3. Try to understand copyright law, as it’s the foundation of your business.

4. My motto is: NOTHING last forever. If you feel you want to leave your publisher, you can ALWAYS
get out of a contract.

5. NOTHING is final until you sign the contract.

6. Don’t jump at the first publishing deal offered.

I would like to hear from you. What have your experiences been with your publisher? If bad, how did you handle it and what was the outcome?

Amazon Author rank is based on sales of all your books in comparison to the sales of other author regardless of formats. My e-book, THE LEAD DANCER ALWAYS GETS FLOWERS, is currently ranked 1,105,284.

WHERE WILL AMAZON RANK BE SEEN ON AMAZON.COM?

The rank will only appear for authors in the top 100 browse category. It can be found in the author’s Author page and Amazon Author Rank page.

READING AN AMAZON AUTHOR RANK via AUTHOR CENTRAL

The blue points shows your best author rank of the day, recorded around midnight Pacific time. They show only that one point in time – your best ranking of the day. The orange point is a snapshot of your rank right now and is updated hourly.

I’m not concerned with rankings or being number one in the charts. My main concern is getting new material out there, getting fans of my work and selling my work globally.

I would like to hear from you. What do you think of the ranking system? How often do you check your rank? What do you think of the author central page?

I wondered about this myself and it’s a great relief to know that I will benefit from sales. Also keep in mind that if your books are continuing to do well on self-publishing platforms, why rock the boat? But you can still do them both.

Also keep in mind that things change i.e. self-publishing platforms can suddenly be pulled from under us, so it’s important not to build a business on their backs. It’s best to be on several self-publishing platforms. My reason for only being with Amazon is because some only deal with one currency, and not all of them price match, which interferes with my marketing strategy. Don’t copy this strategy. Do what’s right for you.

Why sell direct?

It allows you to see the results of your work.

How to get started

1. Pick an e-commerce service provider
2. After you sign up, upload your files, cover, description and set your price.

There are many hosting sites.

I would like to hear from you. Are you selling your book direct from your website? Are you selling your book in conjunction with a self-publisher?

You MUST market your book before publication. I failed to do this, simply because I didn’t know. Part of my marketing plan was to pay someone to promote my book, so I could focus what little time I have, on writing. I picked a handful of websites to choose from. The prices started at $25.00 on up.

The problem was that I had already done what they wanted me to pay them for, and on top of that, THEIR followers – who they promote to – are pretty much like me: writer/author looking for someone to promote their book.
I felt it was counterproductive to partner with them. My instincts told me to wait until I publish my second book, FLAT 32, as I will then have more shelf space and Amazon will therefore assist me with promotion.
I have indeed heard that people have been quite successful paying for book promotion. It’s a risk and a risk is always worth taking, but I’m following my instincts.

Am I wrong in my views? Have you paid someone to promote your book? Please leave a comment in the box below.

I wrote a similar post for Amazon, so I’m not going to make many changes to this post.

If you publish on Kobo, you can pay the following sites to market your book direct to Kobo readers. These are just a few sites:-

• BookBub.com
• StoryFinds.com
• Trindiebooks.com

I’m still trying to familiarize myself with Kobo’s website, so I’m not sure if they will assist you with promoting your second book, like Amazon. With Amazon, the more books you have available, the more virtual shelf space you have, the easier it is for people to discover you.

You can also choose to sell your books for free, but there are pros and cons for doing so. On one hand your rankings improve and you gain fans of your work and on the other, it’s not guaranteed that your book will actually be read – there nothing wrong with taking risk however.

What makes sense for you i.e Pay someone to promote your book or focus on getting the work out there? Please leave a comment below.